Citizen Developers are highly creative and driven problem solvers who engage in the development of business applications using IT-sanctioned tools and runtime environments. Strategy development for handling Citizen Developers has become critical as uncontrolled development might lead to Governance issues.

Da Vinci Approach

When creating a Citizen Developers strategy, our number one priority is to minimize governance issues. This can be averted by centralizing citizen development activity within strict adherence to Corporate Governance. Outlining where Citizen Developers will be given access to with regards to tools & technologies, processes, and select departments must be established right from the get-go. The suitable tools & technologies is a controlled environment where the developers will work out of. The processes coincides with select departments, Citizen Developers need to be trained to the existing department's structure, such as DevOps, Agile, Waterfall, etc. They need to follow the organization's IT development standards, this should be one unison expectation across the entire organization. 

A centralized accountability center for the citizen development program is where all activity will be monitored and managed. This office will direct the citizen development program in full and via the following suggested responsibilities:

• Maintain the citizen development policy and guidelines.
• Aggregate and provide resources.
• Organize activities, trainings, and otherwise facilitate a community for citizen developers.
• Assume responsibility for managing the platforms and systems that the citizen developers uses in coordination with the organization’s existing IT framework.
• Catalog, maintain, and publish a list of relevant data services and APIs.
• Report on the status of the program to internal and external stakeholders.